TANZANIA: Abolish death sentence-survey

BY FELISTER PETER

A Day after three soldiers were sentenced to death for the killing of Swetu Fundikira, the government has been urged to scrap capital punishment from its statute books and substitute it with life imprisonment.

In interviews with a cross-section of Dar es Salaam residents yesterday, it was clear that the majority were not happy with courts metting out the death penalty to murder convicts.

They argued that if the purpose of a punishment was to rectify a person's conduct in society, capital punishment defeated the aim altogether for denying the convict the chance to reform.

Others said that with the current trend for murder convicts to remain on death row for a long time, congestion in prisons increased. The last time a convict was hanged for murder in the country was in 1994.

The reactions come in the wake of a judgment by the High Court of Tanzania on Tuesday which sentenced to death three soldiers with the Tanzania People's Defence Forces after it found them guilty of the murder of a city resident, Swetu Fundikira two years ago.

Makame Mohamed Mpate, a resident of Tabata Kimanga in Ilala district said since the sentence seemed hard to implementat it would be better if it was changed to life imprisonment.

Mpate, who was airing his views before a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) team, said failure to hang prisoners on death row contributed to congestion in prisons.

Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) executive director Ussu Mallya said human rights activists had for a long time been campaigning for the abolition of capital punishment because it was more punitive than reformative in nature.

“The aim is to change the convict's behaviour and not to do away with life,” she said, adding that once sentenced to life imprisonment the inmates can be used as manpower and assigned to various tasks within and outside the prison.

Kaseka Andrew, a resident of Ukonga, said the government spent a lot of money keeping the inmates who they were reluctant to hang. He said the punishment should be subsituted with life imprisonment or abolished altogether.

Reached for comments, Deputy Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs Angella Kairuki said the government had opted to maintain the death penalty to control and frighten people from committing murders.

She said realistically the punishment was not being carried out in the country, though it was still on the statute books. She said Tanzania has not implemented the punishment since 1995, though some inmates had their death sentences changed to life imprisonment.

The minister said that former president Benjamin Mkapa changed death sentences of 75 inmates to life imprisonment while President Jakaya Kikwete had so far changed death sentences for 100 inmates.

Kairuki called upon Tanzanians to effectively use the ongoing new constitutional review process to air their views on the death penalty's review or abolition. She said once the matter was raised to the Constitutional Review Commission it would be considered by the government.

“We are retaining the punishment but realistically we are not implementing it. The people should air their views on the matter to the CRC for it to be considered for revision,” said Kairuki.

On October 10, 2008, the Legal and Human Rights Centre, in collaboration with the Southern Africa Human Rights NGO Network (SAHRINGON) Tanzania Chapter and the Tanganyika Law Society filed a petition at the High Court calling on the government to abolish the death penalty due to the later denying one’s right to life.

Alternatively, they suggested that those convicted of murder should be sentenced to life in prison.

Rights groups argue that, with rampant flaws in the Tanzania legal system, some innocent people may be wrongly convicted and sentensed to hang for a crime they did not commit.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN (22/11/2012): http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=48265